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Facebook has a handy little year in review for users. Looking through mine and one that you can generate for InstaGram, I found them a little dissatisfying. They didn’t really seem to capture all that was good and bad and huge about 2013. The big things were included, like my new job, but as I’ve pulled away from the internet more and more, I have less of a record of what has happened. I’m not particularly happy about this. It’s not necessary to document everything. There are, after all, only so many memories that you can truly cherish. But I’ve always liked being able to look back on an ultimately inconsequential moment.

There are also constant hums that I’ve become more aware of this year that are impossible to condense and articulate into a tweet or a stats update or even a blog post. My anxiety about basically everything has been pretty tough to contend with. I have really complicated feelings about key people in my life and I can’t tell if they’re valid or not. My kid is undeniably growing up now and I feel hyper-aware of the time that he still spends in childhood. Any time he cuddles with me or drops the front of tough adolescent that he tries on here and there, I breathe a sigh of relief that I haven’t missed it all yet.

Anyway, neither the Facebook or InstaGram reviews contained any moments from July, and I realized that that month contained one of my favorite nights of this year, one that I think/hope that I’ll always remember. Just in case, I don’t, though…

On July 11th, there was a brief but significant thunderstorm in the very early evening. The power went out and we went through the normal stages of reaction: sitting very still for a minute, sighing when it becomes clear that it wasn’t a momentary outage, pacing carefully.

Since it was still light out, the three of us sat on the porch and admired the pretty, midsummer sunset.

We could hear our neighbors shouting their theories about the power outage at each other. So-and-so a few blocks away still has power. Did a transformer blow? What did Duquesne Light say? Have you seen one of their trucks go by? How much stuff do you have in the freezer?

I wanted a popsicle and got some to cool us all down.

It started to get really dark and we needed some source of light. I gathered an odd assortment of scented candles and clustered them on the porch. They were mostly Christmas-related scents. It was odd to smell cedar and sugar cookies mixed with summer stickiness and rain.

After a few hours, we were getting hungry and frustrated. An alert chimed on my phone letting me know that the Pirates game had finally started after being delayed for the power outage. “We could go to the Pirate game,” I suggested half-jokingly. But the husband pointed out that at least there would be power and we could get something to eat.

“Let’s do it.”

We rushed over to the park and purchased bleacher seats. The crowd was pretty sparse since it was a weeknight and the game was just starting at 11 p.m.

I held our seats as the husband and the kid went to the bathroom. A girl coming up the aisle in a sequined skull shirt caught my eye. I quickly noticed that her date was Mayor Luke Ravenstahl.

The game turned out to be great. The Pirates added one more win to what would ultimately be their best season in 20 years. And the three of us did something spontaneous. We went on a tiny adventure and escaped life for awhile.

When I got my very own rosacea diagnosis, the dermatologist did not say, “Yes, the persistent acne and blotchy skin is from rosacea…which, by the way, is a really nice way of saying, ‘You have tiny bugs shitting in your pores.'” He stopped at “rosacea.” If it hadn’t been for the internet, I would have spent the rest of my life slathering expensive prescription cream on my face, blissfully unaware of the horrors taking place on my microscopic levels. So, thanks Buzzfeed. I guess.

This is one of my nose mites, Fred. Say hello to the nice people, Fred.

And, you know, I long ago accepted that we’re all just piles of bacteria and nastiness moving through a soup of bugs and muck, but at least I previously hadn’t been thinking about our face bugs shaking hands when I kissed someone on the cheek.

Over the weekend, I launched a campaign to get the situation under control, which included ordering tea tree oil, which is supposed to help, and new mite-resistant pillow coverings. Then I announced that I was going to be washing our pillows.

“I saw it on Pinterest. What could go wrong?” I bellowed. I used these instructions, which are informative but I must warn you contains the concepts of pillows basically being sponges that double in weight over a year or so due to us seeping all of our face bug shit and life oil into them and oh wait I’m vomiting, brb.

And actually, the whole process was going just fine. I washed my pillow, the baby’s pillow, and a few spares that we keep for guests, and they all came out fluffier and much, much fresher than they went in. The husband’s pillow, for some reason, came out of the washing process smelling like a dog who had spent the afternoon swimming in the Allegheny. (For reference, my dad and I swam in the Allegheny once when I was a kid and my mom wouldn’t let us near the house for like a day and a half.)

I attempted to rectify the situation by washing it again with some baking soda and vinegar to no avail. So the husband is out trying to find a pillow today, probably with a stiff neck. He called me a little while ago to report that Target only had two down pillows that were both really expensive. He called me to update me on this in quite colorful language and I think he heard my sheepish grin over the phone. My defense of his pillow’s demise have ranged from honest regret (“I’m soooo sorry. Really. My intentions were good. I just wanted your pillow to stop eating your face,”) to butthurt (“MY INTENTIONS WERE GOOD, DUDE, WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME? I JUST WANTED YOUR PILLOW TO STOP EATING YOUR FACE. EVERYONE ELSE’S PILLOWS WERE FINE. WHY DOES YOURS HAVE TO BE DIFFICULT? YOU AND YOUR PILLOW ARE EXACTLY ALIKE YOU DESERVE EACH OTHER,”).

A few weeks ago, the husband and I were at Wal-Mart exploiting workers, further diminishing the low rung of the middle class that we exist on, and stocking up on groceries. As we made our way past the clothing section, the husband stopped to take a look at their tshirts. He lazily flicked through the tshirts on a sale rack when suddenly his eyes lit up.

“Kel. You HAVE to get this shirt.”

He held the shirt up for me to see: a patriotic monstrosity the likes of which I’ve seen on people with too little intelligence and too many votes. It was on sale for $8. It was glorious. Taking in all of the elements of the shirt was almost too much for me and I actually teared up a little bit.

Before I could protest or accuse the husband of illicit drug use, the shirt was in our cart. We giggled while checking out and the husband made me promise not to reveal it until 4th of July.

Yesterday, he reminded me at least three times to wear my shirt and when I finally put it on there was much rejoicing chortling.

It was the bright spot in what had been shaping up to be a frustrating 4th. I had spent my morning working on a cake that I had been wanting to attempt since last 4th of July. The cake layers had turned out beautifully, but I ran into some serious trouble when trying to apply an ice cream layer between them. It was simply too hot in my house and the bottom layer of cake ultimately ended up swimming in ice cream soup. I kept trying to forge ahead and save it but it kept getting worse and I ended up dramatically throwing the whole thing in the trash. I probably could have salvaged one layer, and I felt really yucky for throwing it all out, especially since it contained one very expensive vanilla bean. I’m going to attempt the cake again this weekend, probably in the air-conditioned environs of my mother-in-law’s house because I must vanquish it. Much like in running for me, failure in baking is not an option. Obviously, I get really intense about weird things.

Anyway, I kept forgetting about the shirt until the husband or the sister-in-law would look at it and crack up. We went to Dormont for fireworks, which are always pretty decent for a smaller neighborhood, and watched a group of teenagers get arrested for throwing lit sparklers at each other. The baby was really, really disappointed that they didn’t get tased, because he apparently got a taste for that after seeing it happen to someone during a Super Bowl victory celebration on Brookline Boulevard. Also because he is Mommy’s Little Sociopath.

I have off work tomorrow, which I’m just so excited about since having a holiday in the middle of the week turns those of us with a tenuous grasp of maturity into whining brats who don’t wannaaaa gooooooo.

Other matters of biznass: today is your last chance to enter my Pilates giveaway. I also posted some sage advice for Claire Danes, who is up the stick. Call me, Claire! We’ll talk

I haven’t posted much about our kitten, Florian, because a) I don’t post that much, period (I got bills to pay, son) and b) of the many things on my bucket list, “Morph into a cat blogger” is not one of them. Other peoples’ cats are, I think, even less interesting than other peoples’ kids. But if we’re going to start stacking uninteresting things against each other, the internet will fold in on itself. (Read: there’s a lot of subjective joy to be had here. Find what you like and ignore the rest.)

I have to say, though, that this kitten is remarkably goofy. I don’t know if that’s common of all kittens or if he spent his brief time in the shelter huffing glue. He sleeps on my neck. He attacks his own tail. He tries to kill his dry cat food. He randomly starts fights with Greedo, who regularly sports an expression of withered annoyance when interacting with his younger brother. He gets his nose all up in Greedo’s butt, then emerges with this disgusted snarl on his face, like he can’t believe someone’s anus can smell so bad.

Florian regularly acts like such a fool, we’ve started calling him Derp, as in:

It's another piece of inexplicable internet humor. Don't ask me to explain why it's funny. It just is.

He’s just not clear on what his killer instincts are telling him to do, which results in the tail-chasing and the dry-cat-food-killing. He’s also not sure what the hell to do about sunlight. It creeps into the house at weird angles through the windows and then it just SITS there, which just bugs him out. He reminds me so much of Simple Dog from Hyperbole and a Half.

Recently, he noticed that there are little motes of dust that float in through the beams of sunlight and this has pissed him off greatly. His quest to KILL ALL THE DUST has had some unfortunate results, like this morning when he attempted to jump on top of our dresser, only to not quite make it high enough. He bounced off of the dresser, which sent him backwards. He grabbed a few of my necklaces and earrings to keep him company on the way down.

This is him this morning, sizing up the sun and the dust before retreating, at which point his tail scares the shit out of him. The glance at my slovenly bedroom is a bonus.

I’m ripping that post title off of JiveTurkey because this is really just a list of stuff I want more of and stuff I’m sick of. Let’s start with the negativity because that’s my favorite part.

I have had enough of:

• Statements about Whitney Houston and addiction. I know her death was untimely. I know addiction is serious. I’m just so, “Oh…bummer,” about her death. People lead messed up lives, they’re taken advantage of, and then they die in the tub. Alone. Just like all the rest of us.
• Chris Brown and the cloud of bullshit that comes with him. I don’t know what the answer is when it comes to talented people who are also piece-of-shit human beings. I do know that responding to the women who tweeted appalling requests after his Grammy appearance with, “They get what’s coming to them,” or “Someone should beat them so they know better,” is pretty vile.
• “Kids these days” whining. They wear their pants too low. They listen to terrible music. They don’t know who Paul McCartney is. Yeah, you know what that makes you? A cranky old person set in their ways and the reason why no substantive changes ever happen. Shut up.
• Valentine’s Day hype. “Wah, I’m single and this day is so hard for me,” or “Please validate my relationship by gushing over the gifts that my significant other gave to me.” It’s just a day. Do it or don’t.
• Communities on the internet and, obviously, the internet in general. I think at some point I may have been concerned about the dynamics of any given group of people on the internet, but that’s not the case anymore. It’s just one facet of life. If people are being jerks to you, disengage.
• This dress is a little too small on me at the moment. I’m wearing it today and the buttons are working kind of hard. I’m really ready to get back to a normal level of activity. Speaking of which…

Cheers:

• My neck is definitely getting better. This morning I was able to put my left ear close(r) to my shoulder, which I wasn’t able to do even yesterday! (Note: I started writing this post yesterday, so that fact might be relevant when considering the jeers section.) And I thinkthe numbness in my fingers is pretty much gone. I definitely still have issues with stiffness and tightness and pain, but measurable signs of recovery are so exciting. Check out this exciting physical therapy action shot!
  

  No, that's not a booger. That's my nosering.

• The husband and the baby. I really do just love the crap out of both of those guys. Despite my aforementioned annoyed indifference toward Valentine’s Day, we had a sweet time last night getting ready for the baby’s festivities at school. He signed his Valentines while I worked my crafty magic into a Valentines box in a swirl of Spongebob wrapping paper, box cutters, pipe cleaner, and ribbon.
  

  Hold on a sec, Martha's calling me.

• The husband had another Pittsburgh Track Authority performance at Belvedere’s on Saturday and it went really, really well. Again, about 300 people showed up to hear them and the headliner, Kirk DeGeorgio, and it was really cool to see so many people dancing for them. I’m so proud of him and them. I think something big might be brewing for them.
  

  Mine's on the left. Aren't they cute? All squished together and wondering what the hell they're doing? *

• Once again, I done brought the bake sale vibe to this performance and made brownies, which everyone assumed had drugs in them. (They did not.) Both were recipes from blogs that I read that I had pinned to Pinterest. They were Peanut Butter and Fleur de Sel Brownies and Mexican Hot Chocolate Brownies.
• Along those lines, I’m finding that Pinterest is much more useful than I thought it would be when I first started using it. I do, however, need to start a board called, “Stuff I Tried from Pinterest that SUCKED,” because there have been a few duds.
• Completely unrelated, the phrase, “Where’s Wallace?” has been a common refrain in our house and circle of friends, even though the scene from The Wire that it originated from first aired like 10 years ago.

It’s all very serious and intense, but then we got a Steeler named Mike Wallace. Whenever he does something good, the refrain, “WHERE’S WALLACE?” or “WHERE WALLACE AT?” goes flying. Imagine my glee when I came across this children’s book the other day:I have now redefined my life goals and am going to become a preschool teacher so I can read this to my young charges. What could be more adorable than a bunch of 4-year-olds saying, “STRING?!?! STRING! LOOK AT ME!?”

*PTA image source

I’m a terrible blog mommy (note: not mommyblogger, though I don’t care if you call me that, but mother to this blog, as I gave birth to it and whatnot…had to get an episiotomy and everything). On August 3rd, this little blog of mine turned four! Prior to my first real entry here, I had been slinging words around on LiveJournal since 2002. That means that I’ve been oversharing on the internet for 9 years. If there’s a strata to the internet, I’m silt…or something.

Anyway, just wanted to say thanks to anyone reading this for indulging me, supporting me, calling me out on my nonsense. It’s cool to have people to talk to.

One more thing before the weekend…

Reading this post on Gin and Tacos led me to this video on AT&T’s archives.My grandparents still have their rotary phone, which I regarded with disdain when I was young. If I was spending the night there as a kid, I had to think long and hard about how badly I wanted to call my parents, because our phone number had 8s and 7s and even A ZERO AND DEAR GOD LIFE IS TOO SHORT. Now, it’s kind of cool to use it. The whirring zip of the dial gives me the tiniest thrill and the action of moving it around with my finger makes me feel like I possess some mysterious old skill.

The husband and I were watching Adaptation the other night, which we love and I was struck by this scene in which Meryl Streep’s character, deep in an experiment with mind-expanding orchid powder and finally fascinated by something, has a winding phone conversation with her article subject and soon-to-be lover.

I remarked to the husband, somewhat sadly, “People soon won’t remember what dial tones sound like. Cell phones don’t have them.” I never noticed it before, but it really is quite a beautiful sound.

Remember on Friday when I admitted that we hadn’t been grocery shopping since, like, Bin Laden was still alive? Yeah, still haven’t gone. Normally, we would do such a thing on the weekend, but, well…my weekend was wack. It was a wackend.

Saturday I had to work, which is inherently ugh. Yes, it was for a fun thing (graduation) and yes, I’ll get overtime, but it’s still working on Saturday. After that was over, we headed to the baby’s first piano recital, which was in his piano instructor’s storefront church in Swissvale. The baby, always one to tempt that struck-down-by-lightning thing, displayed the kind of religious tolerance that comes from only having brief glimpses of opulent Catholic churches and loudly commented, “This isn’t even a real church. It’s small. And plain.” I have a feeling this is going to be one of the things that comes up if The Rapture is, in fact, this Saturday. The recital was nice enough and not too long. The baby was adorably nervous but got through his piece, “Yellow Submarine,” just fine.

The husband had to DJ after that and I, after putting the baby to bed, passed out on the couch holding my drink. Classy!

Sunday should have been devoted to groceries and laundry but instead I had to attend a Ladies’ Luncheon. I was not in the mood, but went anyway because I decline them fairly often (they’re always at the worst times of the year) and I know it bums my grandmother out when I don’t attend. Of course, I started coming down with a bear of a headache and contributed little to the conversation, but that was good because I started babbling about Ghost Adventures and saying stuff like, “I wonder how much ass Zak gets in those small towns.” Nobody offered up any guesses.

I came home, still vaguely intending to go to the grocery store, but ended up nursing my headache the rest of the day.

Last night, the baby was supposed to have a baseball game but it was cancelled because the weather here has been less than cooperative. It’s rained so much that my grass is starting to look like something that people work on with sickles.

Speaking of baseball, Jwan came over for a little while last night and we were discussing the Pirates and their quick slide back down beneath .500. The husband commented that he still has faith in them ultimately having a winning season, that this recent streak of losses was a momentary hurdle. “More like a HURRDURRDLE,” I replied. The husband laughed but Jwan, who apparently is not aware of DERP, thought I was having a stroke or something.

see more Hurr

Two things worth noting about this video: 1) I’m wearing a shirt that says, “There is no R in Warsh,” warsh being how many people in this region pronounce wash and 2) I did my best to just say the words as naturally as I could. I’ve noticed lately that I do have a bit of a Pittsburgh accent for certain words and that I kind of talk out of the side of my mouth. What’s that about?

Anyway, this has been all over the interwebs by now but I saw it most recently here. The full list, if you’d like to play along, is:

Aunt, Route, Wash, Oil, Theater, Iron, Salmon, Caramel, Fire, Water, Sure, Data, Ruin, Crayon, Toilet, New Orleans, Pecan, Both, Again, Probably, Spitting image, Alabama, Lawyer, Coupon, Mayonnaise, Syrup, Pajamas, Caught

Added on: Pillow, Toothpick, Milk, Eggs

Questions:

What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
What is the bug that when you touch it, it curls into a ball?
What is the bubbly carbonated drink called? Edit I can’t believe I skipped over this one. The word for that type of drink is pop!
What do you call gym shoes?
What do you say to address a group of people?
What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
What is the thing you change the TV channel with?

This is not safe for work, but it is safe for awesome. A classic Dr. Dre song filtered through a Columbia University a cappella group:

Saw this on Sociological Images.